In conventional integrated circuit design, the performance and other physical behaviors of the integrated circuit are verified by running simulation against mathematical models that represent the integrated circuit. The performance parameters of the integrated circuit are predicted across a wide range of physical, process and environmental conditions. In the design stage, the performance and other physical behaviors of the integrated circuit are designed to meet the worst case performance scenarios and at the same time still satisfy design criteria and target yields in manufacturing.
During manufacturing, due to variations in manufacturing process, temperature and other environmental conditions, the performance and other behaviors of the circuit blocks of the integrated circuit can vary dramatically. Despite such variations, the manufactured integrated circuits may still meet the designed baseline of the worst case performance scenarios. In other words, the manufactured integrated circuits may perform better than the worst case performance scenarios.
Therefore, it is desirable to dynamically adjust the operating conditions of integrated circuits during operation post manufacturing, which in turn can improve performance or lower power consumption of the manufactured integrated circuits.